Sunday 26 October 2008 20.01 EDT
First published on Sunday 26 October 2008 20.01 EDT

There are three Ps in this particular odd pod: John Prescott, Sarah Palin and Parody. If you want to add a fourth P, then that's Politics, of course - and politicians' own, stumbling notion of why stereotypical voters jump to attention. Turn on Prescott: the Class System and Me tonight and see for yourself.

John P would be a dream candidate over the pond: a Rocky from the wrong side of the tracks who does policies as well as punches, a railway signalman's son who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and now drives two fat, flash cars (unlike John McCain, who has 13). But this is Britain, so there's scant wonder or admiration in sight as he struts and complains for the cameras. He thinks the class warriors have done him down. He didn't succeed; he was jeered, derided and generally scoffed at by toffs.

"Mine's a gin and tonic, Giovanni," called Nicholas Soames in the House of Commons dining room, and the old ship's steward glowered, just as he glowers today over Cherie the (alleged) snob and other slights. In America, he'd be an instant "real American", blue collar turned up against the cold, working Pittsburgh, Detroit and Scranton for votes - a Joe Biden sort of bloke specialising in shorter, unfinished sentences. But then, as we've seen these last few days, there's another "real" America out there, a land of picket fences, hockey moms, small-town values and smaller horizons; the America that Palin courts while she snarls at big cities where liberals, socialists and terrorists live.

But here comes the parody. Palin - thanks to big city comedians - has emerged as (or perhaps always was) a figure of fun. And Prescott's 10 years as deputy prime minister, in charge of the ship of state while Cap'n Tony and Toffee Nose relaxed in Tuscany, ended in a mixture of French farce and Whitehall comedy, all lost trousers and seedy gags. Palin and Prescott share a parallel plight: they are both the butts of people who feel themselves cleverer, more educated, more worldly wise. But they are also labels their parties seek to wear with pride.

In fact, of course, it is mostly an act - certainly in Prescott's case. He didn't get to Ruskin College, Oxford, or Hull University, by playing the fool. He didn't work his way up through the National Union of Seamen, into Strasbourg as an MEP, into Westminster, into the cabinet, into august omnipotence, without a very sharp brain and tongue. He was formidable, especially in opposition. His own stereotype sells him pitifully short. Yet he was obliged to bluster round in that spin-doctored part because New Labour thought it needed a "real" working-class hero on board to show where its roots still lay. There were auditions for the role of rude mechanical; he was just the job.

And the question now - raised most pungently this evening as Mr P sits in a cafe with three young, appealing Lewisham chavs, girls who have never heard of Gordon Brown, let alone Tony Blair - is whether that role retains any resonance. The cry from the pollsters and spin doctors is a familiar one: Labour has lost touch with its "core" support, the working class Prescott was supposed to symbolise. But here one chatty chav says she's middle class "because I don't work" - and Prezza scratches his bemused head benignly.

These aren't Coronation Street castoffs pretending to represent the great in a tabloid old Britain. Nor are they class climbers who'd love to inspect the new loo in Prescott Towers before taking a spin in his Jag. They're different - feisty, intelligent, unstructured, citizens of what we call an underclass because we haven't found a way of including them in something more cohesive. They are a challenge, not a stereotype. They party but know no party.

Prescott talks balefully of his decade with Cunard, waiting bar and table for the nobs. But cruises these days are ten a penny, and the waiters are Poles or Slovaks or Tunisians - just as the waiters in his favourite Hull restaurant are Chinese. Oleg Deripaska wouldn't let Prezza near his yacht.

Is Prescott man with Prescott values the way to reach Labour's damaged core, as some shivering analysts contend? No way: he's sharp and he's sympathetic, but still a parody construct. Is Palin, too, the way to heartland America's heart? Nope: she's more destruct than construct, a confection actually shedding votes from Ohio to Missouri. You'll enjoy class with the Prescotts tonight, for sure. But just remember that the real, real world has moved on.